Reprehensible
by Fishielicious
Summary: A particularly vociferous argument leads Sirius and Regulus to engage in an ill-advised wager regarding which of the two of them will be able to get more girls. I imagine this is the kind of thing that goes on at co-ed boarding schools all the time.
1. Chapter 1

Regulus Black had known, since his second year, that girls loved his brother. He couldn't help but notice that there never failed to be a gaggle of them following Sirius about. When he sat at a table in the library, a group of giggling skirts from every House and a variety of years sat a table away, hiding behind their books and tittering excitedly, primping and pouting in his general direction until Madam Pince kicked them out. The same basic principle seemed to apply in the Great Hall at mealtimes, and Regulus could only suppose it was the same in classes. He knew that one evening after detention they'd had to serve together (for hexing each other in the hallway), they'd exited the classroom they'd just scrubbed from the floor all the way up to the ceiling only to find five girls lurking rather conspicuously down the hallway.

Yes, the attention Sirius garnered from those of the female persuasion at Hogwarts was considerable. Regulus had spent a lot of time being vaguely annoyed by it, as though it affected him on any personal level, until some time in the middle of his fourth year when things took a rather strange turn.

At first, he thought he was imagining it. There was nothing more than the odd shrill giggle and the quick shuffling of parchment when he turned toward the source, and a growing sense that he was being followed - Rabastan called him a paranoid freak when he mentioned it offhandedly and Evan only snorted derisively into his issue of _Veela Vixens_-but the more time passed, the more pronounced the feeling became, and when he returned to school in January after a turbulent but mercifully paranoia-free holiday, the feeling returned full-force, stronger than ever. He was convinced something was up. He set himself to the task of figuring it out, but somehow turned up nothing until he managed to get into a war of words with Snape that quickly degenerated into a name-calling match and Snape made a particularly unforgivable comment about he and his brother being just alike.

What the fuck had he meant, Regulus demanded to know, he was _nothing _like Sirius, but Snape began to expound a list, the only item of which Regulus took any notice of being the assertion that they were both vain prats who reveled in being trailed everywhere by their own personal fan clubs. He had just begun to take issue with that ridiculous claim when he heard quiet and high-pitched whispering coming from behind him, and he whipped around in time to catch two third year girls watching him avidly. They blushed a furious red when he caught them and bent over their homework so far their noses were pressed to the parchment. He could hear Snape laughing triumphantly behind him and felt the tips of his ears flushing even as something inside of him cried 'A-ha!' victoriously. He composed himself, turned around, and calmly put an end to the argument by telling Snape to fuck off and go back to licking Lucius Malfoy's balls before excusing himself to the dorm. Once there, he lay down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, a wide smile spreading across his face.

* * *

><p>It wasn't until his sixth year that, after more than a year of pretending he didn't know who his classmates were talking about when they mentioned the name Sirius, things more or less came to a head, and Regulus ended up with a black eye and a busted lip, and Sirius with a split brow and a bloody nose.<p>

In the hospital wing waiting for Madam Pomfrey, the curtain drawn between their beds did not prevent them from continuing to argue. It was the longest conversation they'd had in months.

"Don't act like you and your friends are some kind of saints-"

"If you think my friends are bad you ought to take a look at your own-"

"You think anything we do is any worse than how you treat us-"

"Don't think I haven't seen the newspaper clippings, Regulus, you're as bad as any of them-"

"You're so selfish, what do you expect me to do-"

"Not be one of them!"

"You don't understand anything about what it's like to have to grow up and make adult choices-"

"Oh, you're so damn mature, you don't think I made a choice?"

"You made a selfish, immature choice, and you turned your back on everything that's most important in life, and now you're out there, living with muggle-lovers and... diluting the gene pool-"

"What the hell are you talking about diluting the gene pool, you know-nothing prick?"

"As though you haven't fucked muggle girls and mudbloods."

"And so what if I have? At least I can find a girl willing to have sex with me."

"Oh, and I can't?" Regulus was so incensed he didn't even realize the direction of the conversation had suddenly veered off-track, and lost track of whatever point he had been trying to make. "I bet I could get more girls at this school than you could."

"You really want to bet that? You really do?" Sirius pulled back the curtain and stuck his hand out.

At first, Regulus was hesitant. No, he really did not want to bet on it at all, and he had absolutely zero confidence in his ability to attract the ridiculous number of girls Sirius seemed to be able to, but the way Sirius was looking at him, with that damn condescending smirk... Regulus stuck out his hand and shook.

* * *

><p>"Are you sure about this?" Remus asked, looking at him with a cocked eyebrow.<p>

"Of course I'm sure! This is a brilliant idea. I'll humiliate Regulus, thereby putting all Slytherins in their place, win some money and also glory for Gryffindor, and grant the wishes of a multitude of starry-eyed young lasses all at once. Where could I go wrong?"

"I can think of about a million ways, just offhand."

"Don't be so negative. Come on, Prongs, Wormtail, back me up."

James, sitting cross-legged on the bed above Sirius and Remus, looked contemplative. "All that stuff sounds good enough, especially the bit about humiliating Regulus, but it seems somehow... off."

"And what the hell does that mean?"

"I dunno. It's probably nothing. But the words 'morally reprehensible' keep coming to mind."

"Morally... Morally re- Who _are_ you?" Sirius didn't give him the chance to answer before turning to Peter. "What about you? Surely you recognize the greatness this prank has the potential for."

"Doesn't seem like a proper prank to me, really," Peter said, looking up from Professor Sprout's essay on the poisonous plants of the South Pacific. "A prank has stuff like exploding dustbins and green pubic hair and so on."

"Green pubic hair?"

"Well it might be a proper prank after all then, Wormtail, depending on who exactly Sirius has sex with," Remus said, a rather annoying (in Sirius's opinion) smirk on his face.

"The bet involves actual sex?" James asked dubiously.

"Well, I don't think it was exactly stipulated, but I assume the farther you go... The better it is."

"Are you working on some sort of points system here?"

"Er..."

"I fail to see how this is going to pan out when you don't even seem to have planned out the first thing about it."

Sirius's expression soured. "No okay, this is how it works. When either one of us you know, pulls a bird, he tells the other one, and then... At the end of the term we total them up and... Listen okay, it's going to work."

And that was that.

* * *

><p>Tuesday night Sirius found himself snogging Julie Anderson behind a tapestry on the fifth floor corridor. She'd been making eyes at him through their entire Charms lesson, and Sirius was quite glad he didn't really need much instruction on the subject, because he hadn't heard a word out of Flitwick's mouth with the way Julie kept sucking on the end of her quill, with her round red lips, and the tip of her tongue appearing every now and then, as if to taunt him. Her mouth was small and bow-shaped, and her skin was olive-colored, and he thought, if he were going to start anywhere, it might as well be with her.<p>

So now she had her arms wrapped around his naked back, her chest pressed against his as his teeth scraped her neck and made trails of raw pink skin in their wake. She was moaning already, and he thought the show was a little much, but he appreciated the effort, and loved the feeling of her fine, wavy hair between his fingers. He wondered, as he kissed her lips and she moaned into his mouth and his hands ran over the valley of her waist, whether this would lose its novelty now that the bet was on. Because, much as he would swear up and down to the contrary in front of Regulus, he really hadn't done this much in the first place. He worried about Remus's ominous admonishments and couldn't help but frown a little when she closed her eyes and tossed her hair back. Julie Anderson was a nice enough girl, but he didn't feel entirely sure that he wanted to be doing this with her.

But the point of this wager had nothing to do with whether he wanted to do it with her, but whether she wanted to do it with him. Which, apparently, she did. Still, it was almost a relief when they heard Peeves out in the corridor and had to break apart, dressing in a hurry before heading back to their respective dormitories.

The following morning, he stopped by the Slytherin table to speak with his brother, who was gnawing on the end of a sausage.

"One to nothing, Reg," he said, and turned away, not too soon to see the beginnings of a scowl creep across Regulus's features.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: This story is completely ridiculous, which I realize, but I began writing in a long time ago, around 2006, and came back to it recently (after around part 2 or 3) to take a break from more strenuous writing projects. So, anyway, since I started writing this around 2006, parts of it are really only canon compliant (to the extent that you could call any of this canon compliant) up to HBP.**

**Also, does anyone know why on earth it's so difficult to add section breaks into stories on this website (other than the horizontal line)? Trying to add extra line breaks between sections just doesn't show up for me, and neither do asterisks put between paragraphs. Why? What is going on here?  
><strong>


	2. Chapter 2

"That fucker; on the first night!" Regulus fumed as he paced in front of his bed the afternoon after Sirius's startling revelation.

Evan and Rabastan, who were sitting on the floor deeply involved in a game of gobstones, both seemed unimpressed.

"I thought there would be, you know, time allotted for wooing a girl. Yesterday I made some good headway with Morgana Eppinet, but he must have just propositioned that girl out of the blue, and to have her _agree _to it..."

"Would you shut up?" said Rabastan through gritted teeth.

"Honestly, Reg, if you paid half as much attention to girls as you did to being jealous of your brother, maybe you wouldn't be having this problem," Evan said mildly.

"I am _not_ jealous," Regulus said and nodded his head firmly. Evan looked up from the game to stare at him with one half-cocked eyebrow, but Regulus broke the gaze hastily. "But other than that, you're absolutely right." He stopped pacing. "I'm going to go find Morgana."

Evan waved him away, and Rabastan grunted, and neither of them so much as turned as he strode purposefully out the door.

It didn't take him long. When Regulus thought Ravenclaw, he thought library, and and sure enough there she was, writing fluidly as she glanced back and forth between an open book and a roll of parchment on the table in front of her when he found her.

He had been worried he would have trouble coming up with the words, that he wouldn't have the bravado, but he looked at her, with her long blond hair and translucent eyelashes shading round, babydoll eyes, and he didn't feel butterflies in his stomach or a lump in his throat. Surprisingly, he found it easy to sit down beside her and strike up a conversation. She seemed all too eager to be interrupted in her studies, and if she had been waiting for him (though he couldn't imagine why she would choose to wait for him in the library). He was deaf to their conversation, but she seemed to be enjoying herself. She kept tossing her hair over her shoulder, so it caught the filtered, dusty sunlight, and she laughed with a wide-open mouth, rows of teeth somewhat too small, and her spine was straight as a pin, her chest pushed forward. He found his hand on her thigh under the table, under her robes and skirt, and after Madam Pince shot them an evil glare and told them to be quiet for the third time, Morgana grabbed his hand and suggested they go to the Ravenclaw dormitories to continue.

"Won't I not be able to get up to your dorm?"

Morgana smiled and shook her head, little hands wrapping around his to lead him. "The founders thought studious boys wouldn't be forward enough to try to get into the girls' rooms." And then she leaned over and whispered, lips brushing the shell of his ear, "I don't think they counted on ambitious Slytherin types sneaking in."

* * *

><p>Regulus couldn't believe how easy it had been. All he'd had to do was show up and let Morgana take the lead. The next day she looked exceptionally proud of herself and whenever she saw him, she smiled and tossed her hair. He wondered if she'd told her friends, and whether that would hurt his chances with the other Ravenclaw girls. He thought he wouldn't be too bothered if it did, most of them were rather mousy in one way or another. Still, he wouldn't want Sirius to have an unfair advantage and reckoned the best way to insure a positive review from Morgana Eppinet was to be as polite as possible, so he returned her smiles as best he could.<p>

Even with all this to worry about, Regulus was sure it was worth it when he announced to Sirius that they were all tied up, and the scrambled eggs on his fork had fallen right off onto his lap.

* * *

><p>Sirius hadn't believed it. His fork had frozen midair, and Regulus had smirked triumphantly and infuriatingly before turning and swaggering away.<p>

He'd thought Regulus had been bluffing at first, but Peter, who was dating one of those mousy Ravenclaw girls, had confirmed the horror. Morgana Eppinet had told Camille Levine, who had told everyone who would listen about it. In fact, Sirius had been close to the last person in the school to hear.

Now, in Gryffindor Tower, he was agonizing about it, and his friends weren't helping.

"I can't believe you just, in essence, helped your little brother lose his virginity," Peter said, looking at Sirius with a mystified expression on his face as he lounged across his bed, chin in his hands.

"We don't know he had sex with her!" Sirius snapped, pacing anxiously.

"We don't know he was a virgin beforehand, either," supplied Remus, lying on his back on the floor, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling.

"Not helping, Moony." Sirius glared at him pointedly.

"Not trying to, Padfoot."

"He's a virgin, he has to be. He would have told me if he weren't."

"I think if they'd had sex that would've been mentioned in the gossip," James said reasonably, clearly the only one of the three of them concerned with Sirius's tenuous sanity.

For a moment, Sirius looked considerably brighter, but then Peter popped in with, "Well, Professor Isaacs told us to be quiet before Anne could finish telling the story. She might've been getting to it."

Sirius flared again. "What exactly did Anne say?" he asked, his voice deceptively calm.

Peter's brows knitted in concentration and his mouth hung open. "Well..." he began, "she said... Well, she said Camille said Morgana said she'd brought Regulus to the dorms last night. And then that... Well, you know, the entire chain said how Regulus did something really nice with his tongue, but Anne didn't mention where Morgana said he did it..." Peter reported all of this with a perfectly straight face while Sirius's grew redder and redder and Remus didn't even bother trying to stifle his laughter.

"People are talking about my brother's tongue. This is neither acceptable nor funny. _Moony_." Sirius wheeled on Remus, who was enjoying himself too much to be wary of his friend's ire.

"I bet you're wishing you'd listened to me right about now," he said, smugly.

"What?"

"What could go wrong? I'll just win some money and humiliate my little brother. It's a foolproof plan." Remus's imitation was uncanny, really, which only served to incense Sirius all the more.

"I - this - what-" His face was growing a startling shade of red. Peter and James looked on with fascinated trepidation, and even Remus had stopped laughing quite so hard.

* * *

><p>The next Hogsmeade weekend, Regulus was determined to capitalize on the relative freedom afforded to them and the perfect date setting to rack up some quick and easy points. Hogsmeade would be a mission in quantity rather than quality, which somehow seemed like cheating to him, but these were extenuating circumstances, and he couldn't afford to be picky about girls. If he had to snog some of those mousy Ravenclaw girls, then so be it. Better them than the Hufflepuffs, anyway.<p>

So, he'd already had Morgana Eppinet, easily the best looking of them. What was left was Camille Levine, Celia Lewis, and Anne Locksley, in his year, and he wanted to work through as many girls his own age before he had to start resorting to fifth years, as sexually manipulating fifteen-year-olds seemed a little despicable even to him. They'd be a last resort.

Right now, he was standing outside Zonko's, lost in thought, when he noticed tall, gangly Celia coming out of Honeydukes alone. He glanced around surreptitiously - looking for what, he didn't know, he'd already shaken Rabastan and Evan, giving them some shady excuse that, judging by Rabastan's eye-roll, they'd seen through immediately - and, satisfied that the coast was clear, hurried after her.

She hadn't seen him yet, which was good, because halfway up to her, he realized that hadn't exchanged any words with her since last year in Divination when he had predicted she would die a lonely old spinster surrounded by diseased cats. He doubted that was a statement conducive to building a good rapport with a girl.

So, what could he do to convince her that he'd changed? Matured. That he was a wholesome young man who respected and appreciated her as a person and other nonsense? He didn't get the chance to waste too much energy on his admittedly difficult quandary because Celia slipped on an icy patch in the road and fell flat, her Honeydukes bag flipping over and sweets spilling across the street.

Regulus saw his opportunity and took it. "Oi, are you okay?" he called, jogging to her, trying to appear nonchalant and concerned at once, which was a tricky combination of expression and body language to pull off.

"Y-yes," she stammered, looking up at him, her cheeks red with either chill or embarrassment.

Regulus got down on his knees in front of her and began gathering her sweets back into the bright red bag. She seemed stunned into silence (probably at the sight of Regulus Black doing something apparently considerate for someone else), so he kept talking. "That looked like a pretty nasty fall there, you sure you're all right?" He dropped the last holiday-striped piece of chocolate into the bag and handed it back to her.

She laughed nervously. "I'm okay. My backside'll be a bit sore."

He laughed in what he hoped was a warm, friendly-sounding way and stood up, offering her his hand.

She hesitated for the briefest of moments before accepting it and letting him pull her to her feet. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. It's Celia, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I'm Regulus."

The tip of her nose turned even brighter red. "I know."

Well, of course she did. "Are you sure you're okay?" He didn't really know what else to say to her. Sadly, he hadn't thought to memorize their History of Magic textbook, and he couldn't imagine what else Ravenclaws liked to talk about. He was trying to call to mind all of the various uses of wormwood to introduce as a topic of conversation when he realized she was halfway through a sentence.

"...might go to the hospital wing when we get back to school, but I'm sure I'll be fine. So... Thanks for your help and all." She shifted her bag back and forth between her hands and didn't quite meet his eyes.

"Say, I was just about to nip down to the Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer, but my friends are all off on dates... or, er... other things-" the idea of Rabastan or Evan on a date with a girl was simply too ridiculous, and precisely what other things they might be doing remained a mystery, "-so, would you like to join me?" He glanced around to make sure no one was watching.

"Are you..." She knotted her brow and squinted her eyes slightly. "Do you want to ask me about Morgana or something? Because if that's it, I don't know anything about her business, and I don't want to know, and if you ask me, she is-"

"Celia! I'm not interested in Morgana, honestly," he said, surprised by her sudden breathless onslaught. "I just thought, since I'm alone, and you're alone, we could just get a friendly drink, so we wouldn't have to be er... alone." Though now he was feeling a little uncertain about the time commitment involved with this potentially crazy bird.

"Oh. Okay, well sure." She brightened up again, brushing her pin-straight fringe out of her eyes, and smiling.

"Right, then," he said, turning warily and-the effort might've killed him-offering her his arm. "We don't want you falling again, do we?" he asked, smiling in what he hoped was a warm way that intimated he was only fondly teasing.

She laughed nervously and wrapped her mittened hand around his upper arm. God, if Evan and Rabastan saw him, he might as well go find a rock to reside under for the remainder of his years at Hogwarts.

Luckily, they made it to the Three Broomsticks without encountering anyone whose opinion he cared about, and once inside, the gently swinging torchlight about their table did interesting things for Celia's otherwise plain, flat face.

He bought her a butterbeer and a basket of chips, and even complimented her scarf, which he reckoned entitled him to at least a little tongue action, but Celia was even shyer than he'd counted on, and he could barely say anything without her blushing awkwardly and stuttering out something monosyllabic and mundane. In fact, the most animated she got was when she saw one of her friends, at which time she would wave madly and mouth things at them that he was perfectly aware were about him. He wasn't sure whether it was anything to do with him in particular or just that she was out with any boy. Well, it couldn't hurt that it was with _him_, he was sure.

He pushed his hand through his thick black hair and tried to reassure himself that in the end, this would be easy, and over soon. Just think about the scoreboard, he told himself. 2-1. Fuck you, Sirius. When he won, as he was sure to, it would be better than winning a thousand quidditch championships.

When he saw Evan and Rabastan push their way in the door, he was reminded that it was a sure thing only so long as Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum were prevented from interfering, and decided to act quickly.

"Well, gee," he said, quickly draining his butterbeer and scooping up the few remaining chips at the bottom of the basket. "Look at the time. I've got a Potions essay that I just have to work on, what do you say we head back to the castle?"

"But, we don't have a Potions essay this week."

"Right, well. I didn't turn mine in last week, so you can see why I really have to work on it."

"Oh, okay," she said, cocking her head to the side, clearly unsure what he was on about.

He spun his head the other way when Evan glanced in their direction, trying to look as though he was fascinated by something happening out the window. When he finally hazarded a glance back over his shoulder and reassured himself that Evan and Rabastan were now fully occupied harassing Madam Rosmerta for firewhisky, Celia was giving him a bewildered and inexplicably embarrassed look.

"Right, just... There was a-anyway, let's go." He grabbed her hand and nearly dragged her to her feet and out the door, tossing a handful of coins on the table as he went and throwing her coat over her shoulders.

That close call left him feeling flustered, and as Celia was clearly no good at conversation in even the best of circumstances, their walk to the castle was a silent one. Luckily, he saved it from being a total wash halfway back, when he had the wherewithal to grab her mittened hand and squeeze it affectionately. That had to count for something, anyway. A quarter, maybe half a point?

As they walked across the thick carpet of snow, he looked over at her. She was staring studiously (or so it seemed to him) ahead, and in profile her chin looked nonexistent, and he didn't think it was possible for her nose to be any redder. But she did have nice big eyes and thick eyelashes and her mouth was small and bow-shaped. He could do worse, really, if only he could get her to interact with him in any way.

"Celia," he said, stopping in his tracks and pulling on her hand. She turned back to him, lips parted in surprise and he stepped forward and kissed her. He was mortified that _he_ had to tilt _his_head up to do so, but it was only a slight incline.

Her lips didn't move at all under his, and though he would have liked to prolong the moment and open the discussion in the direction of going somewhere private (and maybe getting some third base action), he couldn't just keep trying to put his tongue in her mouth if she wasn't going to give him any feedback. So he pulled away, only to find that he'd been wrong before: her nose could and had gotten much redder.

This, in turn, perturbed him, and he could feel the back of his own neck going red, though that was due in large part to rage. "Sorry," he said.

"Oh, don't be! I mean-I'm sorry, I-I-oh, fuck it all." And then she grabbed the sides of his face and planted her lips on his. He toppled over and they feel in the snow, where they remained until they were alerted by a group of fourth years giggling as they trundled past.


	3. Chapter 3

Regulus spent the rest of the afternoon looking for Sirius, and finally caught up with him at dinner.

"Two. Two to one," he said, casting an evil glare in the direction of James Potter, who seemed to be snickering into his blood pudding.

"I believe what you mean is three to two," Sirius said, not glancing up from his copy of _Quidditch Illustrated_.

"I don't remember hearing about number two," Regulus said, his eyebrows set at disturbingly severe angles.

"Do I have to tell you about each one before I move on to the next? Because that might be difficult. I'd have to be waking you up at all hours of the night, interrupting your lessons, and so on and so forth." Sirius took a sip of his tea and turned the page of the magazine.

"Those are the rules."

"They are not."

"They are so."

Sirius put down his magazine for the first time. "They are _not_."

"Perhaps you two ought to sit down and actually work out the rules before you continue this asinine competition of yours," Remus Lupin, that drab boy whom Regulus always had trouble remembering, said.

"You know that's not a bad idea, Moony. Take a seat, Reg. And for God's sake, stop squinting at Remus like that, you know perfectly well who he is."

"I was not squinting, and we have to do it on neutral grounds," Regulus said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Besides, it's hardly proper dinner conversation." Potter snorted.

"Right, well, twenty minutes from now in the library, then."

"Fine."

"Fine."

* * *

><p>"No way. No points for hand holding, are you kidding me? We might as well be seven years old."<p>

"Well, what about spooning? Like, just sleeping with the girl, but not 'sleeping' with her, you know. Actually sleeping."

"There's nothing overtly sexual about that."

"Maybe not, but most birds won't let you do it unless they wanna... Well, at least do _something_."

"Okay, well, how about 1/2 point for spooning."

"Agreed."

Madam Pince shot them her third death glare of the evening. She was looking particularly venomous, probably because she could tell they weren't talking about schoolwork, but Sirius figured she wouldn't kick them out until their volume increased a few more decibels, so he was doing his best to be conciliatory towards Regulus. After about forty-five minutes of deliberation, the point system stood as such:

_Sexual Act: Point Value_  
>Spooning: 12  
>Snogging ≥ 30 seconds with continuous open-mouth contact: 12  
>Under shirt breast fondling: 1<br>Exposed breast fondling: 1 1/2  
>Under skirt fingering: 2<br>Exposed vagina fingering: 2 1/2  
>Cunnilingus: 3<br>Received handjob: 2 1/2  
>Received blowjob: 3<br>Vaginal intercourse: 5

"No points for gross stuff," Sirius said. "I don't want to hear about it."

"And you don't get points for both under clothing and exposed."

"Of course not, it's one or the other."

"Well then, shall we compare scores?"

* * *

><p>The next few weeks were rather turbulent ones in the Gryffindor seventh year boys' dormitory.<p>

Sirius was rarely seen without a piece of parchment in his hands, typically muttering to himself under his breath and adding and re-adding sums. At first, his friends' reactions had been widely variable.

James had been concerned that Sirius might lose his mind over the bet, Peter that he might attempt to have sex with Peter's girlfriend, and Remus had found it all highly amusing. After nearly twenty-eight days of it, James's feelings on the matter had shifted from those of friendly concern to those of vague rage. Sirius's obsession with the "score" was preventing him from participating in many of James's more lighthearted schemes and to be honest, he was beginning to feel a little jealous. It was nearly the winter holidays, and the one semi-date he'd managed to finagle with Lily had gone frankly atrociously. He'd not yet convinced her to even talk to him again, much less give him a second chance. And here Sirius was, with, after four weeks of competition, a score of 15 1/2, and no, James did not want to know which combination of actions had led him to accrue that specific number.

Peter was handling things better. He had long ago decided to inform Anne of the little bet, after swearing her to secrecy, and was reasonably confident that the disgust she showed was genuine and that neither Sirius nor his weirdo brother would have any luck trying to score points with her. Once he had dealt with that source of worry, he had spent most of his time humoring James and being his accomplice in a number of minor scams.

As for Remus, the humor of the situation had worn off rather quickly, and he now treated any conversation involving the bet with contempt and poorly contained ire. It must be admitted, however, that the upcoming full moon may have contributed to his irritation, deny it though he might.

Things with the sixth year Slytherin boys were not much better. At first, Evan and Rabastan-but in particular Evan-had set out to be as antagonistic as possible to Regulus's chances of winning-doing things like sneakily tripping him while he tried to sweet talk a girl or spreading rumors that he had venereal diseases. They had soon tired of this, though, when they realized that great fun though it was tormenting Regulus, a victory for Slytherin over Gryffindor was always a good thing, no matter on which field of battle.

But Rabastan couldn't help but be more concerned by another field, or rather, pitch. The annual Quidditch match against Gryffindor was coming up, and while typically Regulus was focused on Quidditch above all else, to the point that during the season his marks tended to take a rather radical turn for the worse, this competition was eating up the vast majority of his time: if he weren't chasing after some bird he was brooding over the scoreboard, moodily examining his hair in the mirror, and devising outlandish methods of seduction. Rabastan understood, though, better than Evan did, why Regulus was acting the way he was: Rabastan, too, had an older brother.

In fact, Rabastan understood Regulus's position so well, that he was beginning to formulate wild ideas about how to get Sirius Black back on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. A healthy, murderous sporting rivalry would surely divert Regulus's attention from this silly wager. The only problem was that Sirius had been removed from his position as beater and permanently banned from the sport in his fifth year, for a foul so heinous it had been stricken from the records (but rumor had it, it had something to do with why Quincy Hardaway, the former Ravenclaw captain, walked funny after that). Of course, normally Rabastan would have liked to uphold bans against players with predilections towards making opposing captains walk funny, but right now it was the only way he could see to get Regulus back focusing on what mattered.

Two weeks before the all-important match against Gryffindor, Rabastan went to talk to Madam Hooch.

* * *

><p>Regulus, meanwhile, was making plans of his own.<p>

The contest, he had noticed, had slowed recently. It was no wonder why. There were only so many sexually liberated birds, and once you got through with them, what could you do? There were girls out that wouldn't even have sex with someone as good-looking as he considered himself to be without months of dating and relationship-building nonsense first. There were some girls who wanted to wait for marriage!

The very absurdity of the idea forced him to sit down and have a nice cup of tea to calm his nerves. Luckily, he told himself, he didn't _need_to have sex with them. The way the contest was headed, the points were coming in at a crawl and sometimes not at all for days. And then they were always so close in points that Regulus was confident it would come down to a matter of a point, or even half.

That's when he hit on his most brilliant idea to date. Who was the one girl he knew that Sirius would never ever dare to go after, never even make eyes at across the Great Hall? Who was the one girl in Hogwarts of fuckable age and status who was absolutely off-limits to Sirius, who would mean unanswerable points for Regulus if he could so much as give her a nice, chaste kiss on the lips?

Lily Evans, of course.

* * *

><p>Friday, precisely two weeks before the Gryffindor and Slytherin Quidditch match was an eventful day for all of our heroes and villains.<p>

James and Sirius were eating lunch in the Great Hall when Professor McGonagall approached them in the middle of their meal.

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Black," she said, her typically stern expression mixed with a hint of confusion, visible only in the worry lines at the corners of her mouth. "I need to talk to the two of you." When they exchanged questioning glances and were slow getting up, McGonagall raised her voice, "I mean _now_, gentlemen."

"All right, all right," James said, getting up, his shoulders slumped over and his expression surly. Sirius followed suit.

"What have we done this time?" he asked as McGonagall led them out of the Great Hall and into the corridor.

"I am quite sure that to say 'nothing' would be a gross misrepresentation of the facts, but I'm not here to talk about that. I want to talk to you because of a conversation I had with Madam Hooch this morning.

James shot Sirius a wary look and the two of them shrugged at each other.

"She said that yesterday afternoon, a student wishing to remain anonymous came to her with some, well, bizarre evidence regarding the unfortunate incident with Quincy Hardaway."

"Hardaway," Sirius muttered under his breath, clenching his fists and narrowing his eyes.

McGonagall pressed her lips into such a thin line that for a moment Sirius believed she would permanently lose the ability to part them.

This belief was proven to be mistaken more or less immediately. "Mr. Black, I would refrain from giving the impression that you are anything other than the best of friends with Mr. Hardaway and are genuinely regretful about his unfortunate injury."

"Well, I might have to work on the 'best of friends' bit, but I certainly don't wish the bloke any harm-and never did, as I have always maintained." Sirius did his best to pull an injured face for McGonagall, sniffing perhaps a bit too dramatically.

"Yes, well, fortunately for you, this apparently concerned witness has come forward with evidence which appears to exonerate you from any wrongdoing." McGonagall sighed as though torn between doubts of the veracity of said evidence and her desire for a Gryffindor Quidditch Cup.

"_Really?_" Sirius said, his voice rather more highly pitched that usual due to elation.

"Brilliant!" Was James's only reaction, and he put it quick on the tail of Sirius's question, as though to head off any possibility of McGonagall adding an addendum to her pronouncement, along the lines of, "But that witness was soon found to be psychologically disturbed and profoundly befuddled and as such we are launching an investigation into your possible involvement in his bewitchment."

"We'll start practicing right away, c'mon, Sirius," James continued breathlessly, tugging on Sirius's arm, probably still concerned that the other shoe was about to drop.

"Is that right, Professor?" Sirius asked, voice as raspy as if he were asking her whether she would like to come to bed with him (and if he and Regulus had thought to put some kind of bonus for sexual activities with members of faculty and staff into the point system, he might have, too). "Do I get to play again?"

It might have been a delusion brought on by elevated levels of serotonin, but he thought McGonagall even cracked a smile. "Yes, that's what it means. But I expect you to be the absolute model of proper Quidditch etiquette and sportsmanship from here on out, Mr. Black, or I shall remove you from the team so fast your head will spin and you'll be polishing Slytherin Quidditch trophies for the duration of your Hogwarts career."

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Now, I suggest you gentlemen get practicing. I think you know who Gryffindor faces in two weeks."


	4. Chapter 4

Rabastan was pleased that the first part of his plan had gone off without a hitch, but he was disgruntled enough about the difficulty he was having pulling off the second part to cancel out any pleasure he might have experienced.

The fact that Sirius had been reinstated had at first seemed to have a kind of impact on Regulus. He had briefly looked annoyed, and Rabastan had even convinced him to come to practice for the first time in weeks, but after thirty minutes Rabastan hadn't been able to find him on the pitch and the new third year beater shrugged and said Regulus had mentioned something about an ongoing project he needed to devote more time to. Rabastan had only been able to clench his fists around his broom and swear that the next time he saw Regulus he was going to do to him what Sirius Black had done to Quincy Hardaway, whatever that was.

* * *

><p>The project Regulus had referred to was, of course, Lily Evans. He had spent the majority of the time since he had decided that she was his sure-fire secret weapon in the battle against Sirius following her from an inconspicuous distance and taking notes from James Potter's behavior on flirtation techniques she did not find appealing. He had at first thought he'd be able to mine Snape for information about how to cozy up to her, but Snape was for some reason unwilling to talk about her and Regulus decided it was just as well; that greaseball hadn't seemed to be getting much attention from her lately, anyway.<p>

He was probably better off left to his own devices. After all, he wasn't a moron like Potter or congenitally repulsive to women like Snape. How hard could it really be to get close to her?

One of the things that he had learned in the few days he'd spent learning all he could about her was that Evans was generally considered the top witch in her year at Charms. And, difficult as it was to admit, he was, so to speak, unsure that Charms was really his best subject. Maybe it was due to the fact that when Professor Flitwick suggested he ought to take his studying more seriously, he was so offended that he stopped coming to class half the time and had to cheat to pass the last midterm.

This week he had managed to swallow his pride (in the hopes of acquiring a much greater pride) and started going to class again. He'd even had to put on his best Peter Pettigrew-esque groveling expression to apologize to Flitwick and ask him to recommend a tutor.

He had been concerned for a moment that Flitwick was going to see through him, but he reckoned teachers must have some kind of obligation to encourage students-even truant students. He must've been right, because Flitwick only gave him one pointed look from the top of his tall stool before saying he would talk to Evans about it (that is, after Regulus detailed why he couldn't possibly work with the top student in his own year due to scheduling and personality conflicts).

Evans approached him that day at lunch by slamming her books down on the table in front of him. When he looked up from his shepherd's pie, she was glaring at him with a look that could've sunk a thousand ships.

"May I help you, Lily?" he asked, giving her his most winning smile.

"I don't know what you're playing at, _Black_," she said through clenched teeth, her eyes slits, "And I don't want any part of it. But if you try any funny business, I am fully prepared to tell Professor Flitwick you tried to molest me. And he'll believe it." She hissed so violently little flecks of spit landed on the tip of his nose. "So just watch out, and meet me in the Charms classroom this evening at 6:30." She began to turn around, but changed her mind and whirled back on him with an accusatory finger pointed in his face. "And _don't_ call me Lily."

"Looking forward to it, Evans!" he called after her as she sashayed away.

"Well, you've got your work cut out for you, mate," Evan said, nudging him in the ribs with an elbow. "You think she's that hostile to all blokes? Maybe she's one of those feminist types. I mean, I suppose she is right that you're up to something, but it seems pretty cynical of her to just _assume_..."

"Shut up, Rosier. She's lovely."

* * *

><p>"Well, what do you think he's up to?" Mary MacDonald sat on her bed in the Gryffindor girls' dormitory, painting her toenails while Lily did a crossword puzzle the next bed over. "He's obviously up to something."<p>

Lily shrugged. "That family, you know. Sirius is okay, I suppose, but I don't trust his brother one little bit."

Mary leaned over her knees to blow on her wet green toenails. "It does seem strange," she said absently. "Doesn't seem like the type of person to ask for help, even if he needed it. Or to even think he needed it."

"Yes, it's not in typical Slytherin fashion, is it?"

"You know what you should do?" Mary jabbed the air with her nail brush. Lily looked up from her crossword with raised eyebrows and Mary grinned triumphantly. "If you want to know how a Black thinks, why not ask one?"

"What, you mean..."

"Ask Sirius what _he_ thinks Regulus is up to. Even if he doesn't know, I bet he'll be interested in finding out. And maybe more intimidating than you can be."

Lily scowled and set her jaw at a harsh angle. "I don't need Sirius Black to fight my battles for me." The tip of her pencil broke off on the puzzle.

"Well, suit yourself." Mary shrugged and began on the second foot.

Lily scrunched up her nose and frowned deeply in a way that suggested she would do just that, no matter how painful it might be to her and everyone around her. "Well, it's almost 6:30. Do you think I ought to go?"

"Well, disinclined as I am to trust someone who keeps company with the likes of Mulciber..." the soft hairs on the back of her neck bristled at the mere memory of the "unpleasantness" with Mulciber. It took her a moment to remember what it was she was going to say. "Ah... disinclined... no, really, you probably shouldn't go." There most likely hadn't been a counterpoint to her first, anyway.

"But I don't want to disappoint Flitwick."

"Fine, then go. Who cares, I don't care. What do you think of this color?"

"It's a little flash for me, honestly. I think maybe I'll go. Yeah. And if he tries anything funny, well, I'll hex him blind, yeah? If he's not any good it Charms, it oughtn't be that difficult." Lily stood up and threw her scarf around her neck.

"Yeah, sure, I'm glad we had this highly edifying conversation," Mary muttered, wiggling her toes in the little foam holders that kept them apart. Lily raised herself to her full height, grabbed her knapsack, and marched to the door. "You really think the color's too flash?" Mary asked wistfully as the door slammed behind Lily.

* * *

><p>Regulus had been waiting in the Charms room for ten minutes by the time Lily got there. He had made sure to get there early for two reasons: 1) he'd wanted to make a good impression (and to this end he'd also already placed his Charms textbook and personal notebook on a desk in order to appear immediately studious and hard-working) and 2) to give himself time to arrange appropriate mood lighting.<p>

He'd been able to get the candles lit well enough, but unfortunately, making them float whimsically about the room was a kind of Charms-ish spell and he'd put a few fresh scorch marks on the ceiling when the candles had simply rocketed into the ceiling instead of hovering a few feet over his head (had the ceiling not been there, he was sure they would have proceeded straight into the stratosphere, which might have been all right). After this, he'd given up, which was just as well, since as soon as Lily burst through the door (which she did with the all the force and grandeur of a tempest), she snorted and made a comment about the dismal lighting before shooting little jets of light from her wand and into the main light fixture, which lit the room rather flourescently and like a dentist's waiting area (a place which Regulus, incidentally, had never seen. To him it felt something like an interrogation room).

"Hello, Li-er, Evans," he said, squinting against the sudden glare.

"Good evening, Black," Lily said, throwing her knapsack almost violently down on the floor and a pulling the chair Regulus had carefully placed beside him around the other end of the desk. "Now," she said, sitting down and settling herself, "what type of incompetence are we dealing with, exactly?" She crossed her legs and her eyebrows came down rather severely.

"Er, well." Regulus shuffled through his notebook, suddenly feeling compelled to think up something intelligent to say about Charms. "Well, I don't know if I'd say incompetence, really, I-" He glanced up at Lily and wilted under her gaze. This was not really the power structure he had hoped would develop. "A kind of general incompetence, I reckon."

Lily glanced over at the broken candlesticks lying on the ground and one of her eyebrows popped up at an alarming rate. "What're those?" He had never heard a more uncanny McGonagall impersonation.

"Er." He could feel his ears going red and thought about feigning a case of dragon pox. "That's nothing." He tried to push them out of sight with the tip of his shoe. "Just some candles."

Just then, a bit of ash fell in a trail of tiny black snowflakes onto the desk between them. Lily looked up and Regulus nearly bolted for the door. "Are those scorch marks? Did you-_accio candlesticks_," she said, and the broken halves rushed neatly into her waiting hand.

"I was trying to make them float," Regulus blurted before she could hazard a guess. "You know, like in the Great Hall, only they kept just, well, shooting up into the ceiling." He looked down and rubbed behind his ear.

"Oh my God, you were actually practicing. Do you-you mean this is an actual tutoring session? Do you really need help with Charms?" She sounded like she was about to laugh.

"What, did you think I was trying to trick you for some reason?"

"Well, yes, to be honest," Lily said, the tension in her shoulders visibly loosening. "I know your friends' reputation. They don't seem like very nice people."

"You just have to get to know them. They're really good people, deep down." Regulus thought this was perhaps the biggest lie he'd ever told. He was worried that, having giggled a bit while saying it, he might have given it away.

Lily just smiled archly. "Is that so? Well, let's get started. I'm sure we both have more important things to be doing."

Regulus didn't know about more important, but certainly he could think of things he'd rather be doing, so he just nodded.

Twenty minutes in, Lily had successfully taught him to get the candles floating in the kind of whimsical way where they bobbed gently up and down, like the air was water under them.

"Good!" she said, her cheeks red with exertion and pride, and clapped Regulus on the shoulder. "You're doing so much better."

Regulus lowered his wand with a grimace on his face. Improved though he may have been, he still didn't quite appreciate being coached by a mudblood. "Thanks," he muttered. Maybe Flitwick had been right about him needing to pay more attention in class.

"What's the matter? I've not seen anyone improve that quickly, you shouldn't be discouraged."

"I'm not." He pressed his fingers to his forehead and sat down at the nearest desk. "I mean, thanks."

"I shan't tell anyone about this. You oughtn't look so down." Lily sat down next to him, and out of the corner of his eye, he caught her hand in the middle of moving to rest on his shoulder. She pulled back right before it did, but he had to push down a smile.

"Sirius would never need tutoring. I can't imagine how hard I'd catch it if he found out."

Lily bit her lip. "It's not as though he's perfect. I'm sure you've noticed-your brother can be a bit of a sod. He and Potter will probably never stop thinking throwing stink bombs in the Great Hall is great fun."

Regulus waved his hand. "Thanks for trying, but I don't need you to tell me how much of an arse my brother is. I ought not to keep calling him 'brother,' like that."

"Because Sirius moved out of your house?" Lily said tentatively.

Regulus snorted. "'Moved out.' I reckon you could call it that." He pushed his fingers back through his hair and sat up. "But, you don't want to hear about this rubbish. Where were we?" (He was already thinking about how he could discreetly stab himself in the eye to induce crying.) He started to stand up.

"Oh, wait." Lily reached up and grabbed his arm. "That is, if you'd like to talk about it, I can listen."

Regulus had to shove a triumphant shout back down his throat.

"You know, if you keep all this bottled up, it might help to explain why you've not done as well in school. Inability to focus, you know," Lily said concernedly.

Now, he really hadn't thought about that. "You think so?"

"Oh, yes. You see, my father's a psychologist, and he sees this type of thing all the time."

"A sci-what?" Regulus squinted at her as though she were from the moon and leaned back warily. It sounded like some kind of Muggle pseudo-science.

"It's a Muggle profession; psychology is the study of the psyche, like, er... why you do the things you do, when you don't even know why you do them. The inner mind, the subconscious and all."

"Mmhmm." Regulus could feel his eyebrows flying up and his nostrils flaring, but he was powerless to stop them.

Lily laughed. "Oh, I can tell you think it's nonsense, but wipe that expression off your face. A lot of Muggles think it's a bit of nonsense, too, to be honest. But I think it's very interesting. Not that I'm any kind of psychology expert, but the biggest part of a psychologist's job is to listen, and I can do that."

"Uh-huh." Regulus took a deep breath and forced his nostrils down to normal size, but he could only manage to halfway lower one eyebrow.

"Oh, stop. You're making me feel bad." She slapped and his wrist, and he smiled.

"I'm sorry, Lily, but... this pisicology sounds like the Muggle answer to Divination or something."

"First of all, it's psychology. Sigh-call-o-gee."

"I don't need to know how to pronounce it to know it's rubbish."

"Oh, you don't, do you?"

"No. Look I bet I can even do sighcallogee without knowing how to pronounce it-"

"That was better, actually."

"No, really, let me see your head."

"What?"

"Trust me." He put his thumbs over her temples and rubbed the top of her head with his fingertips. "Oh yes, see, you have a little lump here, which means you'll marry rich, and this low spot over your ear means you're predisposed to hate cabbage. How did I do?"

Lily laughed and pushed his hands off her head. "Stupid, that's phrenology."

"Oh, they're different?"

"Yes! But, I do dislike cabbage."

"Well, there you have it." He slapped his palms against the desk and leaned back in his chair.

"I reckon all this fuss about psychology is your way of saying you'd rather not talk about it." Lily leaned on her elbow.

"Talk about what?" Regulus was alarmed to notice he was starting to feel a little clammy. He broke eye contact quickly.

"Never mind." She laughed. "Shall we try this again, same time tomorrow?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Yes, I know, I know. Bizarre developments. But trust me!  
><strong>


	5. Chapter 5

When Regulus stumbled absently back to the Slytherin dungeons that evening, it was with a dumb grin on his face and a giddy feeling in his stomach.

Not only had he not completely crashed and burned, but Lily had said she looked forward to seeing him next time, and she'd smiled at him as they parted, too. James Potter was clearly a raving incompetent. And Lily? Well, other than being a Mudblood, she was all right.

He paused in front of the dorm door to clear the dopey smile off his face and replace it with a more typical vaguely irritated scowl.

He pushed open the door, but didn't manage to make it over the threshold before big, meaty fists grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the room. He landed hard on his tailbone at the foot of his bed, the back of his skull knocking against his bedpost.

Rabastan loomed large and murderous over him, and after a moment of staring up at him hypnotized with fear, Regulus's fingers began scrabbling spasmodically for his wand. Before they managed to close around anything but air, Rabastan had seized him again and hoisted him up to his eye-level.

"I've tried to do this the nice way. I tried to give you a little healthy motivation, but it just wasn't enough, was it? So now you've forced me to resort to more extreme measures." Rabastan shook him by the lapels and Regulus's eyes crossed.

"What're you-"

"Now, listen up. You're _going_ to start coming to Quidditch practice, and you're _going_ to play against Gryffindor and we're _going_ to beat your brother and the rest of those fuckwits. Or else _I'm_ going to hang you from your bedpost by your necktie and-" he leaned in closer to Regulus's face, his slit eyes on fire with rage, and hissed, "no one will miss you. Got it?"

All of Regulus's blood was collecting in his face and he couldn't feel his lips, but he managed to gasp, "Yes!"

Rabastan tossed him back, this time onto his bed instead of the floor. "Good." He snorted, bull-like, spun on his heel and exited the room, the door's slam echoing on the flagstones after he was gone.

"Jesus Christ," Regulus muttered.

"You should thank me." Evan's voice entered the scene suddenly.

Regulus had, unsurprisingly, not noticed him sitting on his own bed across the room.

"He was going to beat you worse until I reminded him you might not be able to play Quidditch with a severed spinal cord."

"You know, the tailbone is the worst place for a Quidditch injury."

Evan shrugged. "I did the best I could. You may have other things to worry about, though."

"Oh yeah?" Still rattled and trembling a bit, he turned away from Evan to untie his shoelaces.

"You were with Evans, weren't you? Being tutored?" Evan didn't have to laugh for Regulus to hear the mockery in his tone, but he did anyway.

"Yes, and as you well know I was not there to be tutored." His shoes dropped to the floor with two hollow thumps.

"Oh yes, how did your romantic overtures go?"

"Just fine, thank you. Actually, I was in quite a good mood before returning to this hellhole."

"Well, you might take that as a sign of things to come. I would avoid the common room once it gets around what you're doing."

"And _why_ would it get around?"

Evan smiled thinly. "What, is it supposed to be a secret?"

Regulus spun to face Evan directly. "Yes, it's supposed to be a secret, and if it does get out - what I'm trying to do with Evans, namely - I will not have to look very far when I'm looking for who to curse cross-eyed, will I?"

"As much as I dread being cursed cross-eyed..."

Regulus jerked forward and grabbed Evan's wrist. "Tell me what you did."

Evan wrenched his arm away. "I didn't do anything. But Snape knows."

"And what do I care that Snape knows?"

"I don't know, maybe you don't. But you know he's not the type to easily forgive a personal offense, and make no mistake, Black, this is a personal offense."

"Sure, whatever." Regulus rolled his eyes and leaned back on his elbows. "Jesus, you had me worried."

"Fine, if you're not concerned. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Regulus stretched and pulled his bed hangings closed. "I won't."

* * *

><p>"She didn't want me to ask you."<p>

"Ask me what?"

"The point is, don't you tell her I said anything. Deal?" Mary spun around in the hallway to face Sirius and block his path.

"Fine. What are you talking about?" Sirius looked down briefly at her face. He was annoyed. Becky Lingerfeld had been walking directly in front of them and he'd been trying to work his charms on her for the better part of a week. He hadn't been having much luck.

"I'm talking about-well, I'm concerned about her, really."

"Who?" Sirius peered over her shoulders, his lips drawn tightly in a frown.

"Oh, you know. Lily." Mary stuck her arm across the corridor, forcing him to lean back.

"What about her?" He looked down again. "Nice fingernails."

"Really, you think so? Lily thought the color was too flash, but-"

"Mary-"

"Right, right. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that. Well, Lily's supposedly tutoring your brother, but it sounds to _me_ like he's up to something, and I thought you might know-"

"She's doing what?" Sirius's focus shifted to her face and his eyebrows knotted above the bridge of his nose.

"She's tutoring him, but-"

"My brother? Regulus?"

"Er, yeah."

"He's up to something."

"That's what I said. But what?"

"Thanks, Mary. Don't worry, I'll handle it." He clapped her on the shoulder, and turned around, heading the opposite way down the hall.

* * *

><p>The next night, Regulus was supposed to have another lesson with Lily. Of course, he was also supposed to have Quidditch practice, and he was not particularly in the mood to test Rabastan's patience.<p>

He was still trying to make his final decision (though, really, he'd known what it would be since Rabastan bruised his tailbone throwing him on the ground) at dinner, when he finally caught Lily on her way into the Great Hall.

"Hey, Lily, I don't think I'm going to be able to make our, er, session tonight. Do you think we could reschedule?"

"Oh." She looked a little confused. "Sure. Just let me know whenever you need another lesson."

* * *

><p>At practice that evening, Rabastan kept an eagle-eye watch over Regulus, Regulus supposed so as to make sure he didn't try to sneak off in the middle again. He needn't have worried: halfway through practice, Regulus noticed that Snape, contrary to his typical practice of only surfacing from the dungeons twice daily for meals, was in the stands watching. (And Lily, he couldn't help but see, was sitting a few rows in front of him.) There was something sicklier than usual about his complexion, and he looked somehow murderous. Well, when he was looking at the pitch he did. His gaze kept jumping down to Lily, at which point you could see the scarlet rise in his cheeks all the way from the pitch.<p>

"Goddammit, Black." He heard Rabastan shout just in time to turn and see a bludger flying at his face. He ducked, but the bludger clipped his shoulder and he barrel-rolled on his broom.

Regaining his balance, he shouted back at Rabastan, who was sliding to a stop in front of him, "Shit, if you want me to play in this damn match, you ought to try not to leave me maimed."

"Well, you're not any good to me staring at the stands, do you expect to find the damn snitch down Evans's blouse? If you don't stop trying to imagine what she looks like without her clothes on and focus on the game, I can guarantee you you'll never get to see her damn bra strap in person - cos you'll be dead. Next time, the bludger's going to your head."

"Christ," Regulus muttered as Rabastan turned and sped across the pitch. He was inclined to acquiesce to Rabastan's request, but he glanced back at the stands just once more. Lily was up, and on her way out, but the scarlet color in Snape's cheeks could not now be mistaken for a modest blush.

Rabastan had intended for them to hear his spiel, that was for sure, probably to try to cow Regulus into behaving: if Lily now thought he was a lecherous bastard and Snape's murderous urges were ratcheted up to full strength, Regulus would be best-served all around by minding his own business and focusing on Quidditch.

Well, he knew when he'd been played successfully. He turned around and shot up above the stands to get on the lookout for the snitch.

* * *

><p>After practice ended for the rest of the team, Rabastan had Regulus stay out and drill until it became too dark to see the little yellow rocks they were using in place of the snitch.<p>

By the time Regulus made it back to the Slytherin dungeons, he was sweaty, tired, hungry, and hadn't even started on his Defense Against the Dark Arts essay.

Just as he was rounding the corner between the Potions classroom and the dormitories, thinking about trying to bully some fourth year into writing his essay for him, a hand reached out from behind a rusty suit of armor and grabbed his arm. He didn't even have the chance to yell before the tip of a wand was jabbing against his jugular.

He was about to start swearing up and down to his shadowy attacker - presumably Snape - that he never had any intention of talking to Lily Evans again, and in fact, from now on he would be abstaining from looking at her, if that would please Snape, and furthermore he was considering adopting the lifestyle of a homosexual, when his assailant leaned forward into the faint torchlight and Sirius's face materialized in front of him.

He shoved Sirius's arm away and sighed loudly. "Goddammit, you about made me piss myself; I thought you were Snape."

Sirius's face momentarily lost its threatening glower and adopted an insulted scowl. "How could you think I was Snape, I-"

"What the hell are you down here for, anyway?" Regulus interrupted him.

"Oh, yeah." Sirius pulled his own collar straight and grabbed Regulus by his. "What the fuck are you doing with Lily Evans?"

Regulus was having an especially eventful week in terms of being hoisted up by his lapels and having flecks of spittle propelled at his face. "What do you mean, I-Jesus, it's like a crime to talk to the woman in this place." Sirius had pushed his forearm up under Regulus's jaw, and the latter was having a hard time breathing.

"My mistake was putting that in the form of a question, you slimy piece of shit. What I meant was, I know what you're doing, or rather, what you're _trying_ to do with her, and you'd better acquire yourself some Charms ability - without her help - or we're going to have problems."

"I'd say we already have problems." Regulus's fingers had finally found his wand, and now he jabbed it into Sirius's stomach.

Sirius didn't so much as flinch, but knotted his fist tighter around Regulus's collar.

They stood there, nose to nose, their breath mingling in a sweaty fog, eyes unblinking, until they heard footsteps down the corridor. Sirius glanced quickly in the direction of the noise and leaned harder against Regulus's throat.

"Back off," he hissed finally before taking off in the opposite direction.

* * *

><p>"Well, what on earth did you tell him that for?" Lily pinched Mary hard on the arm.<p>

"Ow!" Mary grabbed her arm and stared at Lily with a wide-mouthed, incredulous expression. "Well, I did it cos I was worried about you, but now I think maybe you deserve it."

"Of course Sirius thinks something's up, it's because if it were him, he'd be up to something. But Regulus is perfectly nice, and now he's just going to be embarrassed his brother knows he's getting tutored."

"Yeah." Mary rolled her eyes. "Sure."

Lily stuck her lower lip out and turned away from Mary, toward the common room fire.

"Didn't you say when you went to his Quidditch practice, that Rabastan Lestrange yelled something about Regulus wanting to see you naked?" Mary was not dropping the point so easily.

"Yes, well." Lily looked down and made out to be studying her fingernails intently. "That's perfectly natural." She couldn't help but smirk a little.

"Oh my god. You _like_ him."

"Like I said, he's a perfectly nice young man." She couldn't help the broad grin spreading across her face, either.

"Ew, shut up!"

"Why?" Lily threw her hands up in defense. "We get along well-"

"You've only had a sustained conversation with him once."

"Well, he's cute."

"So, you like him because he looks like Sirius."

"No!"

"Then, what?"

Lily hesitated. "To be honest, it's funny. I tutored him last week. And the day after, we were supposed to meet again. But he rescheduled and he hasn't asked me again since."

"So?"

"So. No one's ever broken a date with me before."

"Oh, so it's a date now?"

"You know what I mean."

"So you like him because he doesn't like you."

"In a way, I suppose that's so." Lily knitted her brow and began playing with the end of her ponytail.

"Girl, that's not healthy." Mary shook her head.

"You're right." Lily sat up straighter. "If this moron can't keep a date, I'll have to take matters into my own hands."

* * *

><p>"I can't keep doing this." It was Monday night, and Regulus had just finished slamming the door behind him. His broom twigs were bent and sticking out haphazardly, his Quidditch jersey and trousers were wet and streaked with grass and mud stains, his hair was sticking up at even more bizarre angles than usual, and his face looked like it had been trampled by a herd of stampeding hippogriffs.<p>

"What?" Evan lowered the _Daily Prophet_ and arched an eyebrow at him.

"_This_." Regulus gestured at his face. He threw his broom down on the floor and began peeling his gloves off. "Rabastan will kill me if I stop. It's been every night. Every damn night all week. And he'll kill me if I won't do it, but he spends most of practice trying to kill me anyway." He coiled up and threw the gloves like a shot put. They slammed against the wall and slid down behind his bed.

"What, you think if you lose all your equipment he can't make you practice anymore?"

Regulus already had his wet jersey halfway up his back and over his head. "You know what the worst part is?" he shouted from underneath.

Evan sighed and raised his newspaper again. "What?"

"I haven't been able to talk to Lily all week." He hit his palm against his bare chest and dragged his fingers down his stomach, leaving white trails in their wake.

"Well, that is a tragedy."

"She likes me. I know she does. But I can't talk to her in the Great Hall. Sirius sits too near her. He'd murder me on the spot. And in the halls she's surrounded by Gryffindors, on her Prefect shifts - Well, Snape's a Prefect, too."

"Scared of Snape, now, are you?"

"I'm just trying to get through this with as little trouble, or bodily injury - to anyone - as possible. I'm accustomed to taking Sirius's threats seriously. And I've realized you're right."

"Oh?" Evan lowered the _Prophet_ again, perking up at the thought of having his impeccable judgment praised.

"About Snape. I saw him at Quidditch practice. He practically stalks her; I don't even want to try to find her alone somewhere. He could just jump out of the shadows."

"Why don't you just give it up, then?"

"Give what up?" Regulus sat down on the bed and began untying his shin guards.

"Evans, you dense twat. If it's so difficult. You just need to snog a bird, so what about some of those little third year girls who love you so much?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe it's because they're 13?" Regulus threw a shin guard at Evan's head.

Evan, whose wand rarely left his hand, vanished it easily.

Regulus scowled and Evan continued blithely. "Anyway, if you're too 'ethical' to snog 13-year-olds, then what about some Hufflepuff? Just compliment her on her knitting or whatever it is Hufflepuff girls do instead of have sex."

"No." Regulus fell back on his bed. "Now that I've started, you know, I've got to finish it."

"That doesn't sound like you." Evan laughed. "I know what's going on here. You don't just have to fuck her, you _want_ to."

"She's got nice tits."

"No, it's not just that. You want to buy her dinner, then fuck her, then lie in bed with her and tell her how pretty she is." He was practically crowing. "You really like that filthy little Mudblood."

"Shut your goddamn mouth, Evan."

"Are you angry I said you like her, or are you angry I called her a Mudblood?"

Regulus realized that he didn't have anything to say to that, so he just set his jaw, squirmed out of his trousers, and shut the curtains.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Here is something to tide loyal reader(s) over while I putz around drinking myself into oblivion and spewing phlegm all over everything not working on my other more popular (lol talk about relative terms) fic. Lol, Regulus does a lot of flouncing at Evan in this chapter. We also see Rabastan's violent tendencies out in full force._


	6. Chapter 6

The next day - it was Tuesday - exhausted as he was, Regulus spent all his remaining energy trying to avoid Rabastan. It was a difficult proposition, seeing as how they had all of their classes together. He was forced to spend the entire day in bed, emerging at times when he calculated it would be likely for Rabastan to return to the dorms.

He was well aware that the avoidance game he was playing was only a temporary solution to one of his numerous problems. The number of malefactors either out for his blood or his sense of self-respect continued to increase the more people knew about his attempts to woo Lily Evans. And he hadn't even had one stupid date with her.

Rosier was right. Normally, Regulus would have given up this fruitless venture long ago. He wasn't the type to waste his time or his energy on something that wasn't paying out. It was one of the main reasons he held James Potter in such high contempt. The only thing he had accomplished in years of following Evans around like a sad, obnoxious puppy was the complete degradation of whatever dignity he could've had in the first place.

He, Regulus Black, would never degrade himself so completely for a girl. (Narcissa was an exception. She was no mere girl; she was a goddess, and to degrade oneself for her sake was an honor indeed.) And he didn't intend to, not for Lily.

But, he was also disinclined to give up his pursuit at the behest of his brother, or of Snape, or of Evan, none of whom he wanted to give the impression that he was someone they could bully. Sirius, especially. He was sick of being bullied by Sirius.

Plus, he thought he really had a chance with her.

And, eternal devotee at the shrine of Narcissa though he may have been, Evan wasn't all so off-base with his insinuation that Regulus liked Lily. Physically, anyway, it wasn't hard to see what Potter liked so much.

Maybe beautiful wasn't the right word. Her nose was a little upturned and her jaw a little strong. In the sun, she did get awfully freckly, and she was domineering, loud, and had frankly bizarre ideas about what constituted legitimate scientific pursuits.

He was quite surprised to catch himself touching his face and grinning stupidly at the idea. Psychology. Well, it was amusing, the idea of it.

At 4:00, Rabastan would return to the dorms to get his Quidditch equipment, so Regulus made himself scarce and headed to the library, the last place he expected Rabastan to set foot, and certainly somewhere Rabastan would not think to look for Regulus. It was only coincidentally somewhere he thought Lily might visit with more frequency.

He sat there for over an hour, pretending to read some horrendously boring and no doubt totally useless tomes, but finally, when he heard his stomach rumbling, he realized it was dinnertime and she wasn't coming.

So, despairing both at his chances of ever speaking to Lily again and of ever eating dinner (Rabastan would be there), he picked up his bag and trudged heavily out the door.

He was walking down the halls paying no attention to his surroundings and staring firmly at the toes of his shoes, so that he didn't notice a figure blocking his path until he saw a pair of penny loafers in front of his own feet.

"Where have you _been_ the past week?" The left loafer's toes were tapping.

"Er..." His eyes traveled upwards to be greeted by the tops of baggy socks, two thin calves, and the hem of a skirt swishing in time to fingers drumming on a hitched hip.

"Stop staring at my crutch, what's wrong with you?" Lily's voice was arch, but when he looked up she was smiling wickedly.

"Hey." He tried to smile back, but his lips mostly just spasmed irregularly.

"Well, what happened to rescheduling?"

He shook his head and hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. "I'm sorry, Lily, I've just been - well, basically I've spent the week being pelted with flying objects and dragged through mud." He managed to muster up a smile this time.

"I know. Big match coming up." Her smile seemed to melt a bit. She took her hands off her hip and her gaze lowered.

"Yeah." He nodded and rocked back on his heels, biting his lip. "So, were you thinking of going?"

"What?"

"To the match, I mean." He rubbed his hand against the back of his neck.

"Oh. Well, of course."

"Yeah, I reckon everyone goes." He laughed nervously. "But you'll be pulling for Gryffindor, yeah?"

The corners of her mouth turned up again. "Well, I would probably raise some eyebrows if I didn't."

"Do you care? About raising eyebrows?"

She laughed. "No. But I'm definitely pulling for Gryffindor." She punched him on the shoulder. "But, I'll cheer for you, too, if you want."

"Well, only if it won't embarrass you too much."

"How about this: you can catch the Snitch in a very heroic and impressive way, but only after Gryffindor is more than 150 points ahead. Then I won't feel bad about cheering."

"Maybe, but then I'd be the one who'd have to worry about being embarrassed."

"Oh, no! See, you see the game was getting very ugly and out-of-hand, and maybe a few fights were starting-"

"Then I'd have to fight."

"Hush! So you see that, and then you spot the Snitch, way down by the ground, but Stephen Morrow, that tosser, is much closer only he hasn't seen it. So, in the interest of saving your team's dignity, you have to make a straight dive for it, and Morrow doesn't even see it coming until you're right there. But then it's too late! You've got the Snitch! But you can only narrowly miss hitting the ground, and just as you've made a phenomenal recovery, Morrow, in a fit of rage, grabs your broom tail and you go flying into the ground-"

"I don't like the turn this story has taken."

"No, it's good, I promise! So, after that dastardly foul, Morrow is kicked out of the game forever, and you, unconscious but triumphant, are rushed to the hospital wing, where you soon awaken to a bevy of fans and well-wishers, all of whom are beautiful girls who've sat by your bedside day and night keeping vigil."

"Wait, how long am I supposed to be out for?"

"What do I look like to you, a doctor? Anyway, everyone's so overjoyed you're okay - which you are - that the school organizes a banquet in honor of your heroism, and the Minister of Magic himself attends in order to award you the Order of Merlin – and cash prizes!" Lily, out of breath and slightly pink in the face, finished with a grin.

"And that's the only way you'll cheer for me?"

She nodded.

"Well, I won't hold my breath, then."

"What, you didn't like my story?"

"No, it was great." He hesitated.

"It's just that-"

"What?" He could hear her toes tapping impatiently again, and he didn't have to look to feel her eyes boring into him.

He shook his head. "It's nothing, how about rescheduling for our next tutoring session?"

"Oh." Her lips turned down momentarily, almost into a pout. "Well, how about tomorrow, or will you be busy practicing?"

"I might be, to be honest I've spent all of today avoiding my team captain." He tried to smile again, but the mood had suddenly become so onerous. He had a bad feeling that he had really messed up something.

She sighed. "Well, I suppose it'll have to wait until next week, then."

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

"About what? You're the one who needs the help, anyway. It doesn't bother me." If she were not bothered, she really was doing a good impression. Her mouth was compressed into a tight little knot and her eyes were staring at a spot just to the left of his face.

"Yeah, I know." This was obviously getting out of hand, but he had no idea how to pull it back.

"Well, if that's it, I really ought to get going-" She made to step around him, but though his vocal cords seemed incapable of being proactive, the rest of his body wasn't ready to give up. He grabbed her arm to stop her passing.

She immediately yanked it away and he pulled his hand back as though it had been burned. "I'm sorry, I just. Well, I really wanted to say something else to you."

"Okay." She drew her arm back and folded both of them across her middle.

"Well." He had never had so much trouble asking a girl out. He had never really _wanted_ to ask a girl out. "I was thinking, it seemed like, well, that we got on pretty well and everything - not now, I mean, obviously, but last time, and-"

"Do you want to go out with me?" she asked suddenly. Her expression was terrifyingly neutral.

"I, er, well... are you asking me, or are you asking if I was asking you?"

"Do you?"

"Well, yeah, I reckon I do." He could feel beads of sweat coalescing on his forehead.

"You ought to have said so." She smiled. Regulus nearly fainted with relief. "Shall we meet this weekend to celebrate after your Quidditch match?"

"That sounds brilliant," he said, laughing a little disjointedly. He could feel his Adam's apple jerking around in his throat.

"But I still expect to see you for tutoring." She grabbed his hand, leaned in, and kissed him on the cheek.

By the time it occurred to him that he might be able to seal the deal right then - kiss her on the lips, and beat Sirius once and for all - she was already around the corner and halfway to the library.

It was only then that he regained control of his motor functions and dragged himself down to the Great Hall to see if he could still get any dinner. Stricken as he was, he still couldn't ignore the palpitations of his desperate stomach, and suddenly, he couldn't imagine being afraid of anything so trivial as Rabastan's wrath.

* * *

><p>In the middle of the night, Rabastan tore open Regulus's bed hangings and swore to him, square face ominously lit in the moonlight from the windows, that the next time he felt like taking a sick day, he ought to consider which would hurt worse, a tummy ache or a broken neck. After that, it took Regulus another hour to go back to sleep, covers clutched up around his chin and eyes peeled wide open.<p>

* * *

><p><em>AN: To readers of The Life You Lose, if you happen to read this also... I promise I am working on the new section I am just intolerably slow and a putz and other annoying things. Also, did you know that "putz" is actually Yiddish for penis, I had no idea. Anyway, here's part 6, and don't worry: I'm a James/Lily shipper just like all sensible people._


	7. Chapter 7

The morning of the Gryffindor/Slytherin Quidditch match, Sirius woke early with a smile on his face and a song in his heart.

He performed his typical morning rituals: flexing in front of the mirror, singing at the top of his lungs in the shower, accompanied by Peter's and Remus's plaintive shouts and howls of protest, and carefully trimming his pubic hair into perfect symmetry.

When he went down to the common room, feeling refreshed and ready to win, he found James hunched stiffly over a piece of parchment, muttering incomprehensibly to himself and prodding tiny figures on the parchment with the tip of his wand.

Determined not to let that insufferable Potter ruin his buoyant mood, he slapped James on the back. "Top of the morning to you, Prongsie!"

James looked up at him with the face of some kind of amphibian creature that had been dwelling in an underground cave for generations. He was breathing out of his mouth.

Sirius withdrew his hand and took a step back, trying not to let his lip curl back as far as it desired. "What are you doing? Have you been at this all night?"

James held the parchment up for Sirius to see. "I have a neeeew game plaaaan."

Sirius snatched the parchment out of his hands and quickly examined it. "Prongs, this doesn't make any goddamn sense at all."

"What?" James's face fell like a brick off the Astronomy Tower.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Sirius balled up the parchment and threw it in the common room fire. James made an attempt to dive after it, but mostly fell over the arm of his chair and flailed a bit. "Oh my god, you're delirious." Sirius grabbed his shoulder, put him upright, and put the back of his hand on James's forehead. "Jesus, you're burning up."

"No, I just-" James shook his head and slapped Sirius's hand away. "I just had this _great_ idea, and I don't quite remember what I'm saying." He looked up at Sirius with big, sad eyes whose pupils Sirius could see expanding and contracting at irregular frequencies.

"Christ, there is no way you can play today, you great git."

"Play?" James, who had apparently reverted to some sort of demented state of childhood, looked as though he were hoping Sirius was offering to play hide-and-seek.

Sirius frowned deeply, feeling his chances of defeating his hated foes on the Quidditch pitch for the first time in years slipping through his fingers. "Look, you prat, I don't know what the hell is wrong with you, but the match is at 11:00. It is 7:00 now; I am going to carry you upstairs, you are going to go to sleep, and I am going to the hospital wing to pick up some of every known remedy to every common ailment known to wizard-kind. And you'd better be ready by 11:00. So, _wingardium leviosa_."

By the time he'd got James into bed and stopped him shouting and trying to get up, only to go stand by his bed and stare blankly out the window, it was almost 8:00, and Sirius was beginning to suspect that James had either been poisoned or bewitched. Madam Pomfrey was helpful, if somewhat obviously suspicious, but by the time Sirius stumbled back into the dorms with his arms full of tiny vials containing liquids of many colors and consistencies, James was passed out solid with his glasses on, and would not wake to even Sirius's most persistent and annoying shouts and gyrations.

It was these, however, which finally woke Remus and Peter, the former of whom gravely suggested that they take James to the hospital wing. It was probably Remus's somber expression that finally made Sirius consider the possibility that pinching his unconscious friend's nose and trying to pour unidentified medicine down his throat was a bit deranged.

He finally admitted defeat when Remus pried the bottle out of his fingers and gave him a good, hard slap.

Well, thank you so much, James Potter, for successfully murdering his sunny disposition.

* * *

><p>Regulus did not even get the pleasure of waking up in a good mood. He hadn't even heard Rabastan get up, but at 8:15 that beady-eyed face was hovering over his bed again, telling him that Slughorn needed all the Slytherin Quidditch players in his office right away.<p>

He hadn't even been afforded the dignity of putting on respectable clothing, and ended up sitting in Slughorn's office at 8:20 in flannel pajama pants and an undershirt. It was but a small mercy that his teammates were similarly embarrassingly attired; they usually looked like slobs, anyway.

Slughorn, who was standing in front of the group of them with his hands clasped behind his back, looking distinctly like he did not want to have this talk. McGonagall, positioned with military precision just to the side of him, did not appear to have the same misgivings.

Slughorn cleared his throat and his bristly mustache rumbled across his upper lip. "I've called you all here today for a rather unpleasant purpose." He paused, and his mustache went back to crawling.

Regulus rolled his eyes behind his hand under the pretense of scratching his brow. The third year beater sitting to his right giggled shrilly. Discipline was not Slughorn's strong suit.

McGonagall, on the other hand, was now glaring at the third year with all the ferocity of a hawk, and Regulus was glad she hadn't seem him roll his eyes.

"So, er. Well, I believe Professor McGonagall is better acquainted with the specifics of the situation than I." He coughed again shuffled to the side.

McGonagall stepped into the space he vacated with the instant authority of sharply clicking heels. "Right. As I'm sure you know, James Potter is the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. His roommates awoke this morning to find him severely befuddled. Now-" She put her hand up to still Rabastan, who was obviously about to object to her suspicions. "Before you protest too loudly, I am certainly not here to make unfounded accusations, but I would have to consider myself sorely remiss if I did not think to question members of the opposing team, with whom Gryffindor enjoys a rather spirited rivalry. Now, with the approval of Professor Slughorn, I would like to briefly interview each of you privately so that anyone with any information will have the opportunity to come forward. Any questions before we begin?"

Regulus felt his hand shoot up in the air before he could stop it. "Yes, has anyone considered the possibility that the majority is just now realizing what a dim-witted buffoon Potter has always been?"

"Why, thank you for volunteering to go first, Mr. Black. Mr. Lestrange, do you have a serious question?"

"Several." Rabastan leaned forward and began to tick off his fingers. "One, how long is this going to take; two, will we be done in time for the match; three, if you find out who's responsible for this will the rest of us be able to participate as scheduled?" Regulus could have sworn he saw Rabastan shoot him a narrow-eyed glare out of the corner of his eyes.

"It will take as long as it takes, and if you all cooperate we should be done well before 11:00. However, if anyone in this room should be found responsible, in full or in part, no one will be playing Quidditch today, and Gryffindor will be awarded victory by default." A rumble of protest erupted from the crowd. "Does this sound fair to you, Professor Slughorn?"

Slughorn nodded his head, chin wobbling.

"Right, the rest of you may wait in your common room. Not you, Mr. Black."

Regulus collapsed back into his chair. "I didn't do anything to Potter. And I don't know who did. I swear, give me Veritaserum or whatever."

"Your brother suggested you may have had reason other than a Quidditch rivalry to wish Mr. Potter harm."

"Oh, he would suggest that. If I were guessing, I'd say Sirius probably did it to Potter himself, just so he'd have something else to accuse me of."

"So, you don't have any personal problems with Mr. Potter?"

"Oh, sure I do. I have a _lot_ of problems with him, but I'm not alone in that department, and besides... I have better ways to get revenge."

McGonagall arched her an eyebrow.

"Don't look at me like that. I just mean that I'm going on a date with the girl he's in love with." Regulus couldn't help but smirk to himself.

McGonagall didn't say anything to that, and Regulus crossed his arms over his chest and looked smugly up at her.

"You're sure you don't know anything about how this happened?" she said slowly and clearly. Her eyes were slightly narrow, but she didn't seem to disbelieve him, necessarily.

"No idea, Professor."

She nodded. "Very well, then. Thank you, Regulus. Will you please inform Mr. Lestrange that we're ready to see him now?"

Back in the common room, Regulus came up behind the big armchair Rabastan was sitting in. "What the hell is going on here?" he hissed into his ear.

Rabastan didn't bother to turn towards him. "I don't have a clue, Regulus, what _is_ going on?"

"How the hell should I know?" His voice rose involuntarily.

"If we have to forfeit the match because of this, you're going to regret it."

"Regret _what_? I didn't do anything. Is this your way of punishing me for not practicing enough, or something?"

"Just hope nothing comes of this inquisition." Rabastan stood up and gave Regulus one final, blistering look before he left the room.

* * *

><p>"He's psychotic." Regulus slammed the dormitory door behind him. He could hear Evan gargling from the bathroom. "He's psychotic, Evan, totally mad." he called, approaching the bathroom door.<p>

He heard Evan spit into the sink. "Who?"

"Who else? Rabastan. I think he's looking for reasons to murder me."

"What else is new?" Evan opened the door, still wiping his face with a washrag.

"No, I'm serious this time." He followed Evan to his dresser and sat down on his bed while Evan dug through drawers. "Someone's bewitched Potter. And well enough, that, but I get the eerie feeling that someone's trying to frame me for it."

"And why would that person be Rabastan?" Evan asked, hopping his way into his trousers.

"Bloody beats me. I should think he'd _want_ me to be able to play today."

"He does. Why do you think you're being set up again?" Evan braced himself on a bedpost to pull his socks on.

"It's mostly just a feeling I get. From talking to Rabastan. He sounded suspicious as all hell." Regulus set his mouth in a hard line and pushed his hands against his knees.

"Well, maybe it's nothing."

"Let's hope."

"Get dressed, I want to go to breakfast."

* * *

><p>"So, I was thinking, maybe if Rabastan thought they were going to beat us anyway, he would get revenge on me for not practicing more by making it look like I bewitched Potter. And at least if you forfeit, no one can say for sure you would've lost." On the way to the Great Hall, Regulus and Evan were still debating the merits of Regulus's theory.<p>

"No, no way. Rabastan lost to Potter last year, he's not losing again, forfeit or not. This is his last chance."

"All the same, I could swear he has it out for me." Regulus shifted the Quidditch gear he was carrying to his other arm and sighed. "Everyone in this damn school has it out for me, I think."

"Speak of the devil." Evan grinned a little too broadly for Regulus's taste and pointed at the doors of the Great Hall.

"Oh, Christ." Regulus tried to hide his face, but Sirius had already seen him, and was making his determined way towards the two of them. "Evan, just stall him for a second-" But when Regulus looked back, Evan was nowhere in sight. "Why, you little..." He was still cursing Evan under his breath when Sirius, who must have moved at preternaturally fast speeds to get there as quick as he did, grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall.

A collective gasp rose among the several other students in the corridor.

"What the fuck did you do to James, you slimy piece of shit?" Sirius's fist looked like it was rising, so Regulus put up his arms.

"Slow the fuck down, Jesus, I didn't do anything to Potter."

"Like hell you didn't." Sirius grabbed his arm and forced it down.

"No, I didn't." Regulus pulled back but Sirius didn't let his arm go.

"Well the hell is wrong with you, really? You try to steal the girl he loves, and you know you can't beat him at Quidditch, so you attack him like a coward? You know, you can stop taking your fucking stunted childhood out on well-adjusted, happy people. I know exactly what your problem is, but you need to get over the fact that I chose him over you. He's a better brother than you could ever be."

Regulus swung with his free fist. Sirius pulled back, yanking Regulus's arm with him, and by the time fist made contact with flesh they were on the ground. Regulus barely even registered that he was still throwing punches until someone grabbed him from behind and heaved him bodily off Sirius and to his feet.

"Don't fucking touch me," he yelled, throwing elbows at whoever it was holding onto him from behind.

Sirius crouched with his back to the opposite wall, spitting blood out of his mouth.

"Calm down, Regulus." He thought he recognized the annoyingly soothing voice as belonging to Sirius's poor friend.

"Let him go, Remus," Sirius said, his voice eerily quiet. As soon as Regulus felt the grip on his arms loosen, he shook them free and didn't look back for a second until he was in his bed with all the hangings drawn.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Here's a bonus, two updates in one day! Yeah, my wizards Muggle fist-fight a lot, I guess. W/e, it is more dramatic that way.  
><em>


	8. Chapter 8

"McGonagall wants to see you again."

Regulus had almost managed to fall asleep when the knock came at the door and that squirrelly little third year gave him this unpleasant bit of information.

Regulus looked down at him with a hard scowl on his face. This boy was maybe five feet tall, what was he doing playing beater, anyway?

"Did she say why?" he asked, curling his lip.

The third year flinched. "No. Not exactly."

"What does not _exactly_ mean, you little runt?"

"Er, she said that she worried..." He looked away from Regulus's face.

"She worried what?" Regulus grabbed his chin and forced the little runty face back towards his own.

"That you weren't totally honest with her." The third year squinted his eyes closed.

Regulus let go of his chin and cursed. "Have you seen Lestrange?"

"N-no. Does this mean we're going to have to forfeit?"

"_No._ As I didn't do anything, the answer is no. You ought to go suit up." He clapped the third year on the shoulder and moved him out of the doorway. "Did you eat breakfast? You ought to eat breakfast. Bulk you up some."

"Y-yes, sir."

Perturbed as he was, Regulus couldn't help but laugh as he walked away. "Sir" indeed.

* * *

><p>Back in Slughorn's office with McGonagall, he found much less reason to be cheery.<p>

"I told you the first time, I didn't have anything to do with whatever's wrong with Potter, and you can keep asking me but the answer will still be the same. This is prejudicial treatment, you know, just because my brother thinks I did it."

"Mr. Black, we are investigating every piece of information that we get, and this information seems to suggest that we ought to be asking you more questions."

"Ask away, Professor. I don't have anything else to say."

"Well, you may not." McGonagall pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "But your wand may." She stuck out her hand.

"What do you want it for?" Regulus asked, closing his fist tightly around his wand in his pocket.

"Have you done any spell work this morning?"

"No."

"Well then, if you did bewitch Potter, that should be the last spell performed by your wand. Please, hand it to me."

"Fine." He thrust it towards her. "Go ahead. I don't have anything to hide."

McGonagall gave him a sideways glance out of the corner of her eyeglasses before pressing the tip of her wand against his.

Regulus crossed his arms over his chest. He didn't know why his heart had started fluttering like a hummingbird's. He really didn't have anything to worry about.

"_Prior Incantato._" McGonagall's voice pronounced the words clearly and coldly. Regulus's mind rushed to find the last spell he had performed as a grayish golden glow began to coalesce around the wand tips. Suddenly, a tiny golden jet shot out of the glow and exploded like a firecracker. As the sparks fell, they formed the dusty outline of a prostrate body, which floated gently to the ground and disintegrated.

Regulus was on his feet before he realized it. "I did _not._ Listen, Professor, someone is trying to set me up-"

"Mr. Black, that is quite enough. If your wand had gone missing, I trust you would have had the common sense to report it immediately."

"Well, I didn't notice."

"Please don't continue this charade, it only makes the both of us look like fools."

"But, Professor-"

"That is quite enough. I must go to the hospital wing to let Madam Pomfrey know that she need not keep trying to bring Mr. Potter around with a restorative draught. You shall go directly back to your dormitory and remain there until further notice." McGonagall turned for the door.

"What about my wand?"

"You'll be lucky to see this wand again." Regulus was sure if McGonagall had been anyone else, she would have slammed the door behind her.

* * *

><p>"So, that's what I heard." It was nearly 10:00 a.m. and Mary was leaning across the table, in the Great Hall, badly repressed glee in her voice.<p>

"What do you mean, that doesn't make any sense." Lily scowled. "He's been practicing so hard all week, why would he?"

"Word on the street-"

"What street?"

"Sh! Word... in the hallways, is that Slytherin knew they were outmatched, so they'd do anything to stop the match from happening."

"But." Lily's scowl melted into a bemused frown. "That's so easy. Obvious, I mean. Regulus is smarter than that."

"I thought he was incompetent and needed tutoring."

"Oh, he did not need tutoring. I saw through that ruse right away."

"So, you know he's a liar and a poisoning suspect, and you still think he's innocent?"

"Well, really, the 'poisoning suspect' bit doesn't really figure in, since that's the charge I'm defending him against, not an additional thing in his history-"

"Oh, give me a break."

"And furthermore, he's not a 'poisoning' suspect. He's suspected of bewitching Potter, not putting arsenic in his tea."

"Thanks for the usage lesson, Lady Defensive."

Lily crossed her arms over her chest.

"Listen." Mary folded her hands diplomatically. "I thought you were coming around to Potter. What happened?"

"Nothing. Potter's been... nice."

"Well, maybe Regulus put a spell on him so he wouldn't pose a threat. Maybe the Quidditch match was just a cover."

"Come on, Mary, that doesn't make every one tiny bit of sense. For one, we already had a date planned when this happened, so it's not as though Potter was a 'threat' to that. And why the bloody hell would he use the Quidditch match as a 'cover' when he would obviously end up one of the prime suspects?"

Mary pushed her plate back and stood up from the table. "Well, like I said. He's not very bright."

As Mary walked away, Lily buried her forehead in her palms. "Good grief, what is wrong with this school, can't one day go by without poisonings and conspiracies and set ups?"

Frank Longbottom, sitting a few seats down from her, smiled through a mouthful of muffin. "Welcome to the wizarding world, Lily."

* * *

><p>Regulus may have been confined to his dorm room, but that didn't mean his roommates were locked out. He'd been sitting in the room sweating his body weight out of his forehead - this was a really bad deal, this, innocent as he was, could mean expulsion - for about ten minutes when he heard the door open and close.<p>

"Don't even start, Rabastan. I didn't do this and you know it."

"I don't know it, Regulus." He could hear the tension in Rabastan's quiet, even voice. "I know they pulled the spell back out of your wand-"

"Yeah, and it wouldn't have been too hard for you to get your hands on my wand when I was sleeping, would it?"

"Oh, that's just rich, when I've been training for months, and you can't even get out of bed except to try to stick your cock in some piece of trash Mudblood, whom, coincidentally, James Potter is also constantly trying to fuck. Yeah, it makes a lot of goddamn sense for me to have done this, you're clearly innocent."

"Well, I know I didn't do it, and I know you've been trying to kill me for the past two weeks-"

"So trying to make you work is trying to kill you, is it? If you want to see me actually try to kill you, you're almost there."

"Okay, okay." Regulus sat back and rubbed his temples. "Look, this is not productive. I know someone faked this, I don't know how-"

"I heard you get up and leave the room last night."

"No, you didn't-"

"And I know you're a damn liar, Regulus. You lie to everyone all the time."

"Er-" Regulus started to stutter out a defense, but he realized he didn't have one. He reckoned his track record was really against him.

"I just don't fucking understand why. Why." Rabastan banged his fist against the dresser and Regulus flinched. "We could've beat them this year. Why. Why did you take that away from me?"

"Look, you're right. I am a liar. But I'm not lying this time. I really didn't do this - I want to beat them just as much as you do."

"Now _that's_ another damn lie." Rabastan, laughing almost hysterically, jabbed a finger in Regulus's face and drew it back into a fist. "And you fucking know it."

"Okay, so my commitment to the team has been, well, questionable lately. But-"

"Reg. We've been friends for years." Rabastan sank down limply into an armchair.

Though this did a great deal to relax Regulus, it also made his chest feel a little heavier. Rabastan already looked defeated, and he didn't quit easily.

"Yeah, we've been friends for years." Regulus nodded.

"But I've got to admit - and you've got to admit - all the evidence points to you. Why should I believe you when, well, when we know each other so well?"

"I feel like that sentence should usually end a little differently."

"Come on, Regulus. Why would you do this to me?"

"I didn't. I can't say anything else. I really didn't."

"Then how do you explain the wand, how do you explain that I heard someone leave this room last night?"

Regulus suddenly stopped slumping over in shame and sat up straight. "What if you didn't?" He looked over at Rabastan, who seemed, rather disturbingly, close to tears.

He managed to muster up a half-sneer before saying, "Look, I know what I heard."

"Yes." Regulus leaned forward conspiratorily. "Yes, you heard something. But what if you heard someone coming in, not going out? Of course, eventually it would have to be some kind of combination of the two. But from the beginning, I thought someone must've been trying to frame us - me, as it turns out-" Rabastan opened his mouth to interrupt, but Regulus put up his hand. "Just hear me out. Look, I know I'm not the most well-loved guy in school. Right now, especially. And at first, I thought it was you. But well, I don't think that anymore. Is it so inconceivable that someone came in here, took my wand, cursed Potter, and brought it back here? Think I'm a liar all you want, but don't you think I'd be clever enough to at least do one more spell after I cursed Potter? At least a _lumos_ to get back to the dormitory."

Rabastan's eyes narrowed slightly.

"No, think about it." Regulus, now reinvigorated, continued. "Whoever performed that spell - if, in fact, it was not a Gryffindor - must have had at least two wands. Otherwise, how are they going to get back to their dormitory?"

"They could've made fire in a jar, or a torch, or something, before setting out."

"Yes, but that's a little contrived, isn't it? I mean, I would've had to deliberately go to more trouble than necessary, just to leave extra evidence I could've so easily gotten rid of."

"Well." Rabastan's lips tightened like piano wire.

"Come on, you know it makes sense!" Regulus was on his feet by this time. "This is exonerating evidence, I - well, we - have to tell McGonagall."

Rabastan sat with a finger pressed to his lips while Regulus stood unconsciously holding his breath. Finally, Rabastan looked up at him. "If you're not lying, we could get to play this game."

"Yes!" Regulus involuntarily hopped.

"Well, we'd better try, anyway." Rabastan heaved himself up.

* * *

><p>Ten minutes later, after Rabastan had convinced McGonagall that they had a case worth releasing Regulus from confinement for, the two of them were sitting in her office.<p>

"Well, I must say your case is compelling. Compelling in that it does seem Mr. Black could not have committed this crime unaided. That may indicate that someone did in fact steal his wand in an attempt to fabricate evidence. However, it could equally as well indicate that Mr. Black had an accomplice in the act's commission."

Both Regulus and Rabastan fell back in their chairs with deflated expressions.

"I suppose I won't waste my breath asking you, Mr. Lestrange, if you had anything to do with this."

"You might as well not."

McGonagall closed her eyes and massaged her temples. "Forgive me, gentlemen, but sometimes I wonder why you students can't manage to act like normal, civilized people for just one day."

Regulus attempted to wipe a bit of dried blood from his confrontation with Sirius off his nose inconspicuously. "With all due respect, Professor, Rabastan and I have been acting like civilized people for at least twenty-four hours."

"Because we're innocent."

"And Rabastan didn't even beat me up when he thought I was the one who did it."

"I really wanted to, too."

"Well, that is something you two ought to be commended for." McGonagall looked like she needed a very stiff drink. "But the way it is is this: regardless of what I believe, I cannot in good conscience let this Quidditch match go on under these circumstances."

"What, you think we should catch the culprit ourselves?" Rabastan leaned forward.

"No. No. The last thing this school needs is an outbreak of vigilante justice."

"Yeah, we've got you." Regulus winked exaggeratedly. "No, ma'am, we won't track down the real perpetrator at all," he said in a voice too loud to serve only the two other people in the room. Then, lowering his voice again, he said, "So, can I have my wand back, or what?"

He thought he saw the corners of McGonagall's mouth begin to turn up, but she just as quickly wiped any traces of a smile away and sighed. "While you have made certain strides here, if not to convince me of your innocence, at least to make me doubt your guilt, even if I believed you completely, I couldn't give you your wand back now. And not just because I was not joking about forbidding you from attempting to 'crack the case,' so to speak, yourselves. This wand is undoubtedly the wand that bewitched Mr. Potter, regardless of who wielded it. It could yet yield more valuable evidence. Professor Flitwick and I will be examining it."

"What're you gonna do with it?" Regulus's pitch hit a rather fevered note.

"Not to worry, Mr. Black. It will be returned to you unharmed. If you are indeed innocent. Now, if you would just return to your dormitory." McGonagall took up her quill and began scribbling hurriedly at some parchment.

Regulus and Rabastan glanced at each other, shrugged, and got up to leave. In the corridor:

"Well, what do you think?"

"Really, the list of suspects is rather narrow."

"Right."

"Let's start with Evan."

* * *

><p>"Obviously, I didn't do it, you morons. For one, I don't care one little bit about any of your intrigues, and sports, and whatever."<p>

"We thought you might have done it for fun."

"Well, sorry to disappoint."

"We really just thought you'd be easiest to start with."

"And we wanted to ask you who you thought did it."

At this, Evan laughed and put his arm around Regulus's shoulders. "This one should be easy for you." He grinned insufferably and pinched Regulus's cheek.

Regulus scowled and pushed him away. "Yeah, I reckon it is."

Evan cackled. "Good luck, Reg. And Rabastan, I'd recommend leaving him to his own devices on this one, because it's going to get nasty."

"Who is it?" Rabastan turned immediately to Regulus.

Evan had started crowing again by the time Regulus opened his mouth. "It's Snape."

* * *

><p><em>AN: Well I was going to update TLYL today, but I still can't get the newest part quite right. ): It'll be up tomorrow, with any luck. In the meantime, you get this instead!_


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